Finn Lurcott's Exclusive Interview With Clancy

April 6, 2013 -

Finn Lurcott

Yesterday Daily Beat caught up with the up and coming Clancy (full name Rich Clancy) who has been taking SoundCloud, and clubs all over the UK by storm with his deep house, disco infused sound. I met him in London's East End, at a pub in Shoreditch for an informal chat about some of his tracks, upcoming material, and his thoughts on the ever growing dance industry. Check it out below!

Finn Lurcott: So where abouts are you from?

Rich Clancy: From Manchester, but I moved to London six years ago, and its probably the best thing I've ever done to be honest. London's an amazing city, I love it.

FL: So what got you into electronic music?

RC: The main thing that got me into it was all the old Jacques Lu Cont. Stuart Price who for the last six years has been doing shit like Take that and the Killers, and all those type of albums. Good stuff, obviously they've been produced amazingly, but his early 'Thin White Duke' stuff was amazing. He did a remix for 'Felix Da House Cat', was the Silver Screen (Shower Scene) track, and I heard it in the car on the way up to Newcastle, and I just thought this is amazing. I was always into bands before, I loved Oasis and all that being from Manchester so to hear something electronic which I really dug, I just got the bug from then to be honest. It was melodic, it sounded good, it was decent stuff.

FL: Who are the biggest influences to your sound?

RC: Stuart Price is the main one, but back in the day I used to love New Order. Alot of the 90's house scene aswell, producers were making amazing tracks, Frankie Knuckles and people like that. But to be honest, a lot of my influences now are modern music, stuff thats happening now. I see people making tracks, hear stuff on radio one and stuff that I get sent all the time, and that inspires me actually to get involved and get back in the studio. There's times where you think 'I can't be assed', you can go through a blotch, but then you listen to some tracks and think I'm gonna get in there and do it.

FL: Why do you think there has been such a resurgence in the disco style recently?

RC: I dunno, dance music in general is massive now. Pop music in now dance music pretty much, you listen to one direction records, and they're made so they can be played in clubs, and so you can dance to them. All the hip-hop artists are all making beats now with producers like Calvin Harris and David Guetta. So dance music in general is massive, the disco scene has been big for a few years, I think the house seen is back now to be honest. The disco scene is still there, and always will be, but what I'm really feeling now is house. The whole scene in general has had a massive resurgence which it's great to be a part of.

FL: How do you think the rise of electronic music, especially with the rise of EDM culture in America, how do you think that's opened doors for artists lie you who are up and coming?

RC: I'm not massively comfortable with the whole EDM thing because it makes me think of people like the Swedish House Mafia. Because Steve Angello used to make amazing music, with Ingrosso and it was incredible. Axwell made some decent tracks aswell, but then all of a sudden it came to this thing and turned into a brand, and now EDM is essentially for me producers who are essentially brands. They're making a shit load of money from it, which is great for them, they've been making music for ages and have decided they suddenly want to make a load of money from it. Who am I to say you're wrong for doing it, I doubt they regret it. I suppose in one sense it's mainstreamed it, so now dance music now can be chart music. Its opened the doors for more people to get into it. For example, Duke Dumont is probably gonna be number one by the end of the week, Chris Malinchak is Nick Grimshaws record of the week on Radio one this week. That's been a really great offshoot from it, maybe we're moving away from the whole EDM thing, and the offshoots gonna be a really good thing. There have been positives of it, but in general the EDM for me, I think its a big corporate machine.

FL: Well people are moving towards a deeper sound after being brought towards the music by EDM

RC: Well I completely agree with that, I've not thought of it like that before, but even though Swedish House Mafia are splitting, you only need to look to people like Calvin Harris who is absolutely canning it all over the world now. Fair play to them, they're selling out stadiums and stuff, which I'd love to do, but it's probably not the case because I'm not going to go down that route. Unless the this whole sound were talking about suddenly gets massive, and who knows maybe what I'm doing might be EDM in two years time!

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FL: What are you working on at the moment?

RC: Mainly singles, I've just done a remix for a band which is a bit hush hush at the moment, but I've got two or three remixes on the go. One of them is for Paulie, who used to be in the Cosmanaughts who make wicked disco music they've been playing at The Nest and XOYO round here for the past two years, and they've been killing it. Paul has taken a step back and is doing his own stuff now. The remix for him is out in a few weeks time. I've got about five singles backed up now waiting to come out. I release all my stuff for free on my soundcloud, and I find its a great way of doing things. It's great to get involved with labels but I've hit a groove that I'm in at the moment, and that way has really been really working. If it ain't broken, don't fix it so I'm sticking with that for the minute, who knows in a few months time. My main focus is singles and shows.

FL: How would you define in genre terms the music you have just finished? On your Soundcloud you've used the genre 'dancing' for some of your tracks?

RC: I don't like to put a label to it, some of my tracks are very genre specific, there's no doubt about that, the last track All Just In My Mind was a deep house track, there's no doubt about that, but then remix I finished yesterday is a proper sunset track. The track before was a Disco track, and the one I'm working on now is a House track. When I go into the studio I don't set out to make a certain genre, but it will either end up being house or disco. I've got a few records which will come out in the next few months which will be disco.

FL: What equipment do you use in the studio and in your live sets?

RC: Really simple, live sets I use CDJ's, my ideal set up are Pioneer 2000's, and an 800 mixer, give me that and I'm fine. Never been into laptop DJing, i've never felt it personally, although a lot of my mate's do and it's great. For the studio I use cubase on a PC. I've got a microkorg which is a hardware synth which I use, and my Midi Keyboards and stuff. All my plugin's are korg stuff which you can;t go wrong with. I really like the prophet which is a beast, good bass sounds. The rest is sampled, like drums from other records. I do the hats myself, and don't tend to use loops. There isn't anything too complicated to it.

FL: How long have you been producing for?

RC: Properly for two years, but I first started years ago. I moved to London to do a music production course at a place called Point Blank in Hoxton. It was wicked, I loved it, being down in London getting into production. After a year I finished it, and ended up going into music PR for 6 years and forgot about it. Suddenly 2 years ago I decided I wanted to get back into the production side of things so left the PR work behind.

FL: Would you say you prefer DJing or Producing?

RC: It's diferent, I love producing, and I see myself first and foremost as a producer, but then I love DJing. Equal. You can be working on a tune in the studio, and getting a buzz off that tune and thinking this is amazing, even though you're bigging yourself up, you just made the track. You get such a buzz from that. Then you can go out and play to a thousand people and you buzz in a different way.

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FL: Favourite venue you've played?

RC: I played at glastonbury two years ago in the beat hotel, one of the smaller arenas. That was amazing, a thousand people just going nuts. It was my first propper big show and I was shitting myself. I played after Zero Seven, who was one of my heroes. Being from Manchester I would love to play Sankeys, hopefully that's gonna happen this year. There are loads of new venues popping up all over London, the warehouse venues are great, as is Corsica Studios.

FL: Any plans for an international tour?

RC: Not at the minute, hopefully I'll be doing something in America at the end of the year, but these things take ages. To be honest I just want to get proper touring around the UK and Europe. I've got a gig in Lithuania coming up, and loads in the UK at the moment, but next will be America hopefully at the end of the year!

FL: Who have you been listening to recently?

RC: All the French Express stuff, I love it, loads of the Waze and Odyssey stuff. Listened to a bit of Duke Dumont, aswell as the Magician. The Fact Mixes which you should really check out, which is an online magazine with great mixes. But everyone of the Magicians mixes has been amazing. I also listen to indie music, lot of Jake Bugg, listened to his album like five times on the way back from Cornwall. This Kid's 19 years old and he's making that kind of music

FL: Finally, what are your aspirations for the future?

RC: Just keep making music. As long as I can continue to do this and it continues to work then I just need to progress what I'm doing now. I'd love to get some tour set up, and just make bigger and better tracks.

Check out some of Clancy's Sounds HERE

 

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